119 Final Assessment. {(Part-2) out of 3}

Despite the overwhelming display of the Lightning Flames, Brandon recovered his composure in a snap and formulated a plan to defeat Jay.

Brandon saw right through Jay's intentions of attacking from a distance, and to counter that, he began to close in on Jay by using the best movement skill in his arsenal, the <Lightning Flash>.

With that, Brandon's speed nearly doubled, and in the path he maneuvered, streaks of blue lightning flashed with whistling sounds.

It was a speed that Jay couldn't keep up with since his stats were limited at the moment.

Thanks to that, Brandon managed to evade the unbelievably fast ranged attacks. However, despite such movement speed, he didn't achieve his goal as Jay wittily managed to keep Brandon at bay using the explosive impact aftermath of his attacks.

As a result, Bradon's Health slowly dropped due to that and was at around 40%. At the same time, Jay's Spirit Energy reserve dwindled from the high expenditure of manipulating Lightning Flame.

It was a situation where he had to survive till Jay exhausted his Spirit Energy. As long as Brandon manages to do that, he could overwhelm Jay with nearly double the stats he had over Jay and take him down.

Jay realized what Brandon was trying to do, and to counter that; he proceeded with an AoE attack that covered the entire platform using all his leftover Spirit Energy.

A dark cloud hovered 50 meters above the 100 x 100-meter platform, and deafening sounds rumbled in the green plains as it continued to shoot out purple-red lightning bolts, aiming at Brandon.

With so many of those attacks, Brandon could barely evade and was struck by one of those lightning bolts, and his Health dropped directly from 40% to 25%.

Everyone watching the fight could see that Brandon was in a tough spot as it would take just two more of those purple-red lightning bolts for him to be defeated.

Brandon also understood his situation and couldn't proceed with his previous plan to wait it out.

So, he rushed towards Jay with his top speed, intending to finish him off as soon as possible, but on his way, the intensity of those lightning bolts increased, and he was struck by one of them before a few other explosion impacts of the other bolts reduced his Health to less than 5%.

Realizing that he couldn't be near Jay, Brandon shot the Spear in his hand at Jay as a last resort. Like a Javelin throw, it sped onwards towards Jay.

Realizing the danger, Jay instantly made use of the Centauri Kavach's perk, <Frame Morph> as a chunk of his full body armour morphed into a circular golden-black shield in front of him.

Besides a dent on that shield, Jay escaped without a scratch, and the Spear fell to the ground beside him.

To everyone spectating the fight, it became clear that Brandon would lose as soon as they saw several purple-red lightning bolts shot at the spot he was in.

Even if Brandon somehow dodges them, their impact would still damage him enough to peel off his remaining Health.

However, to everyone's surprise, Brandon locked his arm in a punching posture and enveloped his fist in blue lightning, and prepared to punch at the incoming bolts from above.

Everyone, including Jay, didn't understand why Brandon chose to do that even after knowing the unusually high attack damage of the Lightning Flame.

Just as he was about to be struck by them, Brandon mumbled to himself, "Displace!"

The next instant, to everyone's dismay, Brandon vanished from his spot and reappeared where his Spear was previously at, which was just beside Jay.

Before everyone could realise what happened, Brandon's full-powered punch landed on Jay, and due to the difference in their physical stats, that single punch was enough to chip off Jay's Health entirely and defeat him.

However, that wasn't the end as Brandon's Health emptied out as well just as his punch landed on Jay.

The Earth's Alpha Chosen didn't expect so many turns of events. First, it looked like Jay would win, and then Brandon turned it around by teleporting into the place where his Spear was at.

When they finally assumed Brandon won, he lost his remaining Health, and the match ended up with a draw.

Soon after, MJ flew to the platform, and with a wave of his palm, Jay and Brandon reappeared with their Health returning to normal.

Jay took a glance at the Spear in Brandon and asked him, "You said <Displace> right? That's quite an interesting skill. It could go as far as replacing your position with your Weapon without a Space Innate Talent. Is it attached to your Weapon?"

Brandon replied with a nod and pointed at the Spear, "Yes, that's a skill inbuilt to this Rare Grade Spirit Weapon. I saved it as my last resort to launch a surprise attack. This hidden ace of mine worked well but you seem to have your own. I didn't notice those layers of wind covering your body till I was next to you."

"Oh, that? I secretly casted that skill as insurance just as the fight began. If you had even a little more than 5% of your Health, it wouldn't have done enough damage to defeat you and wouldn't have resulted in this draw."

Jay shared how he used the <Wind Clone Barrier> skill as a precaution, and that worked its part when Brandon's punch was about to land on him as those layers of wind around him turned into his wind clones and attacked Brandon, defeating him in the process.

When MJ was in the midst of announcing that Brandon didn't reach Stage-3 since the match was a draw, Jay intervened, "Even though it's a draw, Brandon still defeated me, it's only right that he passes the Stage-3 of the third assessment."

MJ did as Jay said and rewarded Brandon with Stage-3 and proceeded to ask Brandon, "Do you wish to proceed with the next stage? Do note that in Stage-4 my Master's overall stats and attack power will be at 40% instead of the 30% in Stage-3."

Brandon shook his head and refused to proceed as he could tell that his chances of reaching Stage-4 with his current strength are quite low since he barely made it to draw even after using his hidden ace.

Back at the seating podium, most of the Earth's Alpha Chosen were impressed by Brandon's strength, especially since they couldn't possibly do what he managed to pull off.

What they don't know is that if that fight hadn't taken place in the virtual space, Jay would have read Brandon's thoughts beforehand through Olivia's Innate Talent and would have seen through that surprise attack, and their fight wouldn't have ended in a draw.

Soon after, the third assessment continued, and one by one, each of them fought against Jay only to be defeated within Stage-3.

If not for Jay's new element, maybe they would have had some chance of reaching Stage-3.

Even Sergei, who was considered an equal to Brandon if not slightly stronger, wasn't able to pass Stage-3.

With his combat awareness and capabilities, Sergei should have won, but to his bad luck, Jay was in possession of a Grade-9 Darkness Innate Talent, a grade higher than Sergei.

That allowed Jay to see through Sergei's attacks and have good enough Darkness element resistance, which left Sergei at a disadvantage. But still, he managed to almost defeat Jay in Stage-3.

Meanwhile, Jay's understanding of using the Lightning Flame element efficiently in actual combat improved by a leap through those several spars.

The third assessment almost came to an end with just one more person left to undergo the third assessment.

However, that was what the other Earth's Alpha Chosen anticipated the most since it was Olivia's turn. They all knew that after Jay, Olivia was the strongest one among them, but they didn't know precisely how strong she was.

Now they could estimate her strength depending on the stage she could reach in the third assessment.

Likewise, Olivia was thinking something similar, as she wanted to gauge her full strength by comparing herself to Jay.

To everyone's surprise, Jay allowed Olivia to vie for Stage-5 directly. They all guessed Jay must have believed Olivia would be capable enough to face him at 50% of his full power.

Jay did that because he was aware that Olivia had looted stats equal to half of his overall stats through the Major Origin Sigil.

Combined with her own stats, Olivia's current stats would be around 850, placing her at the peak of Tier-3 and almost nearing Jay's overall stats with just a 100-stat difference.

Still, Jay only prepared to fight her with 50% of his full strength because of the power of the Lightning Flame element.

Moreover, Jay is entirely immune to Olivia's soul attacks due to sharing her innate talent. Even if he weren't, Olivia wouldn't ever dare to attack his soul after what happened to her last time.

Even though Olivia couldn't use most of her Innate Talent abilities over Jay, she could still make use of her high amount of stats and telekinetic power to control weapons to fight.

Before long, MJ commenced the start of the fight between Jay and Olivia.

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In the discord server, I opened private channels for those Top 15 candidates, where I post the respective Advanced Chapter.

Also, you could find the link for Advanced Chapters in the Earth Alpha Prime's Discord Server. (within the 'ADVANCED CHAPTERS!' Category.)

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